Thursday, April 7, 2011

Craftboston: A review

Summary of Craftboston: Wow.

It's been almost two weeks since Craftboston, and I'm just getting back to the blog to talk about this. I'm finally recovered from the rush, and I'm ready for my next huge event, which will happen on Friday, April 8th. And no, I'm not telling you what is happening, but you'll definitely know when it happens. It's that big.

Anyway, back to Craftboston.

The show was HUGE, an entire convention center full of awesome. Seriously, I was in awe of my fellow vendors and so happy and surprised I was invited to join them.Setup went very smoothly, however time absolutely flew by, and before we knew it we were only 2/3 done and had been there for a full seven hours! The trees looked great, and were easier to install than I had planned, though very time consuming. The drapes looked great and the lighting was well worth the investment!I was very fortunate to have one piece sell the week before the show (Water). This worked out well in two regards: The first, it took away most of the pressure to sell like crazy at the actual show. The second was that I had digitally planned for (and created) 9 pieces, but the column in our booth took up the space of one of my pieces, so I only had 8 slots. Worked out perfectly.

VIP night came on Thursday and the very first person in my booth fell in love with my most complicated piece and purchased it. In the first 10 minutes of the show. Before it opened to the public. Yeah. It set a new artist record for my work as well.Needless to say, it was amazing from that point on. I couldn't keep any small pieces in the booth and completely voided my studio/apartment of pieces to restock each day. In the end dozens of small pieces found new homes, and one of the show pieces was purchased (the one that sold at the beginning). Two if you count the sale the week before the show.

The thing that made me most happy, though, was how many people immediately "got" what I do and truly appreciated the work that goes into these pieces. I think being in a craft show, and being one of the few wall art booths immediately made people look at my work (which usually looks like prints or silkscreens) and think..."there must be something more going on here". I also put up a sign that simply read "Hand-Cut Paper Art" and that definitely got peoples interest.

The crowds were great. A few times I had to leave the booth and stand in the aisle due to the number of people in my booth. I had a blast! The show organizers were incredibly kind, my lecture went great, and moveout went smoothly. I really look forward to applying for next year!

5 comments:

Thank you, thank you! I have just devoured your entire blog after I found a link from Cindy Ferguson's blog. I really like your work, and REALLY appreciate the tutorials a lot. I learned a number of useful things looking at them. Thanks for sharing!=)